Excerpt from The Strength of Being Morally: Clean a Study of the Quest for Unearned Happiness
It is one of the laws of life that each acquisition has its cost. No organism can exercise power without yielding up part of its substance. The physiological law of transfer of energy is the basis of human success and happiness. There is no action without expenditure of energy, and if energy be not expended, the power to generate it is lost.
This law shows itself in a thousand ways in the life of man. The arm which is not used becomes palsied. The wealth which comes by chance weakens and destroys. The good which is unused turns to evil. The charity which asks no effort "cannot relieve the misery she creates." The religion which another man would give us we cannot take as a gift. There is no Christliness without endeavour. The truth which another man has won from nature or from life is not our truth until we have lived it. Only that becomes real or helpful to any man which has cost the sweat of his brow, the effort of his brain, or the anguish of his soul. He who would be wise must daily earn his wisdom. The parable of the talents is the expression of this law, for he who adds not effort to power soon loses the power he had. The responsibility for effort rests with the individual. This need is the meaning of individuality, and by it each must work out his own salvation, with fear and trembling it may be sometimes, and all times with perseverance and patience.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Strength of Being Morally (David Starr Jordan)